Code: Virus
by Pinkie Dash Pony
Summary: Two years have passed since XANA died, and the supercomputer has become nothing more than a tool with which to manipulate time. Countless Return to the Pasts have separated the mindsets of the Lyoko Warriors from those around them, and awoken the evil that has slept dormant within the supercomputer since XANA's fall. (R&R)


I have decided to write a new Code Lyoko story. This one takes place about two years after the destruction of XANA via the supercomputer. I hope that those of you who read it find it enjoyable.

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**Chapter 1: What Is Time?**

"Time? What exactly is time? The rolling minutes, the ticking days. It is something that people both curse and love, a way to make people feel like they are always moving forward. It reminds them that sometimes things are out of their hands, and in all honesty, they like it that way. Without time, what would there be? What would be the point of advancing, of history, of future? Everything is given its meaning via time.

Imagine, one day, time simply stopping. The things you were going to be doing tomorrow are no longer important. Neither are the things from the past. All that really matters is what is going on in the present. However, the moment it is over, the present becomes the past. So the actions just done do not lead anywhere because there is absolutely no such thing as future. Days, weeks, months, years… the words roll together. The meaning is nothingness. Life becomes nothingness.

If actions can be erased, they mean nothing either. Anything a person does, everything that makes him who he is, can be controlled if one can control time. It is this revelation that causes a person to realize why time is, in and of itself, unalterable. When a person loses connection with time, they lose connection with the past and the future, making the present pointless. More than that, however, they lose connection with themselves."

A boy, perhaps fifteen years of age, sighed as he finished typing those words into his laptop. He pushed his glasses back onto his nose as he brushed his blond hair out of his eyes impatiently. Then he stared down at the screen again and sighed quietly, before continuing.

"If I'd known all that I do about time when this began, would I have started this? Would I have trapped time, in a sense, so that I could mold and shape it like a toy? If I'd known that doing so would make the lives of my dearest friends forever meaningless, what steps might I have taken to change things. I'm sure, anybody who reads this will wonder why I don't simply stop. Truth is; we're addicted to it.

The pleasure and enjoyment of altering time has slowly begun to fade. We have even lost track of our ages, due to the number of times that a day has been replayed. In actuality, only two years have passed while we possessed this power. Yet, it has been used so frequently, we could possibly be nearing a hundred years of life. You see, it has all become commonplace.

"If we want to see and movie and still go to class, time control. If we don't have enough money but wish to buy three candy bars, time control. To stop controlling time, would be as easy for us as stopping walking. In all honesty, I don't think it can be done. Me and my friends are officially disconnected with time. I wish, more than anything, I hadn't made that mistake. Alas, it is the only thing I cannot travel back in time to fix."

The boy sighed as he saved the file and closed his laptop. He sat in a giant green room with a massive holographic interface, three relatively large mainframes, and a bunch of wires. Shaking his head, he leaned back against the chair that was hooked to the floor near the mainframe and closed his eyes. He used to date his diary moments, but saying a date no longer meant anything. He hated to admit it, but he was tired of this life.

He… felt empty and meaningless. It had been so long since there was anything he had truly felt motivated to do. It was the moments in a person's life that determined their dreams, their goals, and their desires, but countless days of repetition, of goofing off, of accomplishing nothing, had caused him to lose track of his life goals. At some point or another, each of his friends had lost interest in the marvelous world around them. They'd even lost interest in one another. Life had become an endless drag.

Of course, that was only the beginning, the start-up. One can only manipulate and control god-like powers for a certain amount of time. It won't take too long before the consequences of playing god come to light. And consequences there always are. Sometimes, they just aren't noticed until it is too late.

"Hey, Jeremie!" a voice called out, and a young spry 14 year old light blue-haired girl came sprinting around the corner. She paused and posed with a grin. Jeremie looked the girl up and down for a moment in silence. This time thing wasn't to say that they never had fun, just that… well… everything they did was just a distraction from the eternal boredom they found themselves in.

"Aelita… what did you do to your hair?" Jeremie asked with a raised eyebrow.

Instantly, the girl's eyes flashed and she's like, "What do you mean what did I do to it? I dyed it."

"But… why would you do something like that?" Jeremie asked incredulously. "It looked perfectly fine pink."

"Wh…Wh…WHY?" Aelita nearly screamed out, obviously hurt. "Jeremie, you could be a little bit nicer you know…" She trailed off, looking down at the ground quietly. "I just… I dunno… I thought that since we go back in time all the time, I might as well start trying out new hairstyles. That way I can determine which one looks the best on me. In most cases, they'll only last a few hours. At the most a day."

Jeremie was taken aback by this idea, and even had to admit to himself that he might want to try it out, both with hair and with clothes. He'd worn the same basic outfit for night on two years… _Two years_, he scoffed at the thought. No, he'd been wearing it far, far longer than that. "It's actually pretty cute on…" he trailed off and blushed. Then he looked away.

"I'm telling you, Ganondorf isn't that tall!" Odd says as he and Ulrich walked into the room, deep in an argument. "I just battled him three days ago. He's barely six foot."

"Really?" Ulrich asked, obviously not believing him. "Then what about Link, hmm? How small is he then? Are you telling me that every single character in Hyrule is a midget? Because Ganondorf is much taller than any of them."

"I'm telling you, you are confused! Link is nearly as tall as Ganondorf," Odd protested.

Ulrich frowned. "Well unless you decide to measure him, I guess we'll never know!"

Jeremie shook his head as he and Aelita shared a glance. Odd was the only one who hadn't gotten bored of the trips to the past, and the only one who truly seemed to be enjoying his eternal life. Sure Jeremie, Ulrich, and Aelita put on normal high school faces, it was not much more than a mask. As for Yumi and William; neither had been wanted anything to do with the time manipulation. Both, although quite reluctantly, had requested to have their names removed from the supercomputer so that they could have a semblance of a real life.

At that time, barely three months into the new way of life, Jeremie and the others had thought it was ridiculous. Ulrich had been certain it was because she wanted to be with William, despite the fact that she had pleaded with him to do the same. Ulrich, unwilling to leave his best friend, and already jealous of the fact that William was doing it with Yumi, had refused. He'd told Yumi that he wanted her to stay with him and live the way that Jeremie was going to allow them to. She'd flatly refused and left.

Now… after countless years had passed… William and Yumi were the ones that everybody envied. The romance between Ulrich and Yumi seemed so many years ago that it had been lost to time, something that Ulrich had never truly gotten over. Alas, the years had done taken their toll, crushing the connection that Yumi and William had once had to the group. Nowadays they were little more than strangers. As was everybody at Kadic Academy.

Mainly due to the countless years they'd lived, none of the four had anything more than could learn in high school and had thus stopped coming to class. They would show up for tests, ace them, and then leave again. The teachers, seeing clearly that whatever the four were doing was working, had long since stopped complained about it.

They were seen around Kadic, often reading and studying who knows what. The kids there, however, considered the Lyoko Warriors odd, and avoided them if at all possible. Except, of course, when they wanted a favor. Then, for a small price, Jeremie would rewind time for them. However it was that he did it was left a mystery. This was the life the four lived, until something unexpected happened that thrust them suddenly out of their bizarre way of life and suddenly back into reality.

As Jeremie, Odd, Ulrich and Aelita stood there, Jeremie's laptop beeped. The four looked at it for a second, before Jeremie curiously opened it. Instantly, the four friends' mouths dropped open in stunned silence and horror. For the first time since XANA's destruction two years prior, a tower was activated. Then, a second tower was activated. Followed by a third. Then a fourth. Soon every single tower inside of Lyoko had been activated. The weirdest thing, however, was none of the towers had the same color, and not a single one was red.

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So, to sum things up, the Lyoko Warrior group has shrunken down to four, they have lived for perhaps a hundred years, and are still in school. Questions of what will happen next, what these different colors mean, and what in the world any of this is about, will be explored over the next several chapters, so please return whenever you can to enjoy more of the story. Also, I enjoy reviews because they help me know who, if anybody, is enjoying the story. Don't have to say much more than that you liked it. That, in and of itself, would be appreciated. And with that I shall conclude this chapter

- Xanatos Stones


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